The fascination
of a telephoto lens is in its ability to pull in a distant scene without being close
to the subject. You can get truly dramatic frame filling shots of almost everything.
Further, in comparison to wideangle or normal lenses, given a constant focusing distance
value, telephoto lenses have inherently less depth of field at each f/stop. Selecting
wider aperture will easily make subject stand out from background in bold relief.
This is often called "selective focus".

Another prominent optical characteristic of telephoto lenses is that it seems to
compress the space between objects, producing impression of flattened perspective.
Telephoto lenses exhibit moderate-powerful magnifications, minimal depth of field
and compressed perspective which makes them indispensable for sports, action, theatrical
performance, fashion, news, reportage, landscape and wildlife photography.

These lenses adds to your
ability to control the appearance of the final image. Compared with a wide-angle
lens that covers a tremendous-subject area, a normally "short" 300mm telephoto
lens can be good enough to reach out distant to magnify the subject while with clever
use of depth of field and narrow picture angle, eliminates distracting elements in
the photograph. Most
people would regard 300mm focal length as the end of "normal" telephoto
lenses and starting point for a true super-telephoto range. To classify it under
short super telephoto lenses category is more appropriate, as super-telephoto lenses
above 400mm have some other optical characteristic and further, those long range
lenses are generally quite difficult to handle. Physically, other than size and dimension
- the telephoto lenses (except Reflex lenses) can be easily recognized with a quick
visual identification by verifying at the entrance and exit pupils of a lens, as
telephoto lenses usually have larger entrance pupils than normal and wideangle lenses.

Nikon has
a long history of producing high quality telephoto lenses. They have been design
and making those lenses for their rangefinder Nikon cameras dated back to the '50.
For an intsance, there were already three short mount lenses beyond the 180mm focal
length introduced pre-1955 with Nikkor-Q 25cm f/4.0 (1951), Nikkor 35cm f/4.5,
and two exotic Relfex-Nikkor 50cm f/5.0 and Reflex-Nikkor 100cm f/6.3which
all of these lenses required the use of an external focusing aid and primarily designed for the rangefinder Nikon but redesigned
with a F-mount to be used on early Nikon F, Nikon F Photomic T, Tn and Nikkormat
cameras. Needless
to say, the early versions of Nikkor telephoto lenses required tedious setup in order
to use them, they are bulky and mostly aimed to serve needs rather than intended
to shine in quality.

The first batch of true super telephoto Nikkor lenses
designed specifically in Nikon F bayonet lens mount were only being introduced in
1964 - Nikkor 400mm f/4.5, Nikkor 600mm f/5.6, Nikkor 880mm f/8.0
and a Nikkor 1200mm f/11 lenses (Nikkor
300mm f/4.5 was introduced later). As these
early lens type contain only optic (880mm and 1,200mm have manual diaphragms), an
accessory Focusing Unit and automatic aperture diaphragm operation (cannot be used
with the longest 1200mm due to vignetting but the later AU-1 was compatible).

These arrangement has an advantage of able to reduce
the bulkiness and weight, making them less expensive, more convenient to carry around
and maintain interchangeability among few of these long lenses. These lenses evolved
along with major optical development of Nikkor lenses, where most of them lasted
until 1976/77 and slowly replaced with a modern direct mounting system instead of
making use of the Focusing Unit. These are a few types of such Focusing Unit*, Nikon AU-1 ("AU"
stands for Aperture Unit) which uses standard 52mm filter inside the unit and conventional
Focusing Unit which uses 122mm filter attached to the front of each lens. So, telephoto
lenses beyond the 300mm focal length prior to 1977 in the used market may require
you to take extra precaution in order to avoid confusion with those lenses of modern
design.

As Nikon has always been commanding a leading role at
the professional users' market; which can also be interpreted as the most demanding
group of users for imaging hardware; the Company was believed to have been putting
in a great deal of effort in the lens research and development in order to enable
such leading edge be prolonged. In fact, many of such resulting effort from those
days are still being used in the design and production of Nikkor lenses today.

By mid '70, many new series of Nikkor super telephoto
lenses were slowly phasing out older versions. For an example, some of the Nikkor
telephoto lenses above 400mm encompasses some of the best Nikkor optical innovations
within; some original effort, such as the adoption of Extra Low Dispersion
(ED) glass in optical design and Nikon exclusive NIC (Nikon Integrated Coating
process) have been used throughout to ensure images of brilliantly crisp images with
excellent color rendition and virtually all these lenses have incorporated an Internal Focusing System (IF) to ensure there is no physical extension of the lens
barrel throughout its focusing range where previously, traditionally heavy, bulky
Helicoid system was often used in those older versions of Nikkor super telephoto
lenses. Frankly, many of the lenses actually share a great deal of similarities with
Nikkor telephoto lenses of shorter focal length except some key features were being
used more extensively. These Nikkor super telephoto lenses are characterized to have
extremely narrow angle of view of just a few degrees with depth of field almost limited
to the plane of focus, unless stopped down to their minimal departure which usually
being designed to provide f/22 or f/32.

OFF TOPIC SUPPLEMENTS:

Nikon's ED Nikkor Lenses

The difference in
the refraction index results in dispersion of the various wavelengths as light passes
through a lens is called "chromatic aberration ". This is commonly being
identified as the main element that affect image sharpness Correction of chromatic
aberration in camera lenses has been limited, for the most part, to the use of techniques
which bring two wavelengths of light, normally blue and red, to a common focus. Although
known as "achromatic," lenses employing these designs exhibit a certain
amount of undesirable residual dispersion (called the "secondary spectrum")
which limits image contrast and sharpness, particularly at full aperture. With ordinary optical glass, this secondary
spectrum cannot be reduced beyond 0.002mm times the focal length. Thus, secondary
spectrum becomes a serious problem as focal length increases. Telephoto lenses are most prone
to the ill effects of chromatic aberration, since secondary spectrum increases with
focal length. Nikkor first applied such resulting research of ED onto their telephoto
lenses around 1975 with a few selected long focal length of Nikkor 300mm f/4.5
ED, Nikkor 600mm f/5.6 ED, Nikkor 880mm f8.0 ED and 1200mm f/11
ED to begin with such implementation. Other than super telephoto lenses, another
group of Nikkor lenses which benefited greatly from such ED glass innovation was
actually the super tele-zoom lenses which suffers from inferior optical performance,
the amazing super Zoom Nikkor 360-1200 f/11 ED which was crowned as the longest
tele-zoom in 35mm photography which was introduced back in 1976 was one good example.
For about a decade, the magic word of 'ED' was almost synonymous with only Nikkor
optic until rivaling camps brought other comparing alternative optical innovation
to catch up. The ED series of lenses are actually incorporating glass elements Nikon-developed
special optical glass called "Extra-low Dispersion" (ED) glass (some
called it" UD
" (Ultra-Low Dispersion)" or "SD" (Super-Low dispersions)
by other optical glass manufacturers).
Generally, lens manufacturers uses low dispersion optical glass to correct lenses
of focal length of 180mm and above but it is not uncommon to find some offering 100-150mm
in particularly with zoom lenses. I would rather conclude that as marketing gimmicks
rather than true application. Although the optical characteristics of ED glass are
similar to those of calcium-fluorite crystal which is favored by its competition
such as Canon's "L" series optics,
Nikon claimed ED glass possesses a more constant refractive index over a wide range
of temperatures and will, therefore, cause less of a focus shift as compared.

Also, according to most manufacturers who favors the use of ED glass, often claim
ED's property is much harder and more resistant to scratches, enabling its use for
front and rear lens elements to obtain optimum correction of chromatic aberration
over the widest possible wavelength range. Some lenses within the ED series have
been so fully corrected that image sharpness extends uniformly to the infrared region;
for these lenses, corrective refocusing for infrared exposure is unnecessary. However,
corrective refocusing for infrared photography is necessary for some optic, even
with the use of such rare earth glass in their design. Regardless of which type,
ED-series lenses offer exceptional sharpness and full contrast for the most precise
photography under the widest conditions. Further, by using an internal focus design
which deployed later into many of the Nikkor telephoto lenses introduced later, the
closest focusing distance is shorter than previous model of the same focal length
which employed with traditional Helicoid focusing.

Internal
Focusing System
Conventional lens design with good telephoto optical configuration may enable a significant
reduction of physical length of a long focus lens. And, regardless of how good the
design is, it is still necessary to move the entire lens group inside the lens to
focus. In order to maintain good compromise of robust construction to last especially
when these lenses are designed for professional usage, to make a robust, serviceable
Helicoid usually will results in a large, heavy assembly. That was essentially
the main reason why lenses of long focal length those days have a funny configuration
of interchangeable lens heads for the different focal lengths, and a common focusing
unit. You can see prominent 35mm camera manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon
both have their older Nikkor and FL telephoto lenses in such designs. This has made
life a little easier for the photographer who carries a selection of super-telephoto
lenses. But the bulkiness and inconvenience was apparent, subsequent task for optical
engineers was aim to reduce the weight of the Helicoid significantly where it would
mean the adoption of some radically new method of focusing. The solution during that
time was to design lenses in which the lens barrel is fixed and focusing is achieved
by moving the lens elements internally. Whatever it is, we have then an entirely
new series of new internal-focusing Nikkors telephoto lenses debuted sometime in
1977 with the Nikkor 400mm f/3.5 EDIF and Nikkor 600mm f/5.6 EDIF being
the first pair of Nikkor telephoto lenses to employ with such innovation in its design.
By 1979, the entire series of Nikkor super-telephoto lenses from Nikkor 300mm f/2.8
EDIF, 300mm f/4.5 EDIF, 400mm f/3.5 & f/5.6 EDIF, 600mm f/4.0 & f/5.6 EDIF,
880mm f/8.0 EDIF have been upgraded with internal focusing mechanism.

Not only have the weight and bulk of the Helicoid been virtually eliminated-a great
plus for the user, particularly at the end of a day's shooting-but the operational
characteristics of the lenses themselves have been improved, too. Focusing, because
of the reduction in weight and bulk, is now fast and light, making it easier to focus
quickly or to follow-focus when shooting a rapidly moving subject. The optical elements
used for focusing also make it possible to add extra correction so that image falloff,
as the lenses are close-focused, has been eliminated; the result is lenses which
both focus closer and deliver high-quality images throughout their focusing range.

With an angle of view decreases from 6°
10' (400mm), to 2° (1,200mm), super telephoto lenses gives magnifications from
8X to 24X over normal 50mm focal length. Other than sport/action and news/reportage
photographic applications which most people like to associate these lenses to. The
powerful extra reach of these super telephoto lenses is also useful to those who
wish to cover scenes which is physically impossible to approach the subject, either
due to danger involved (wildlife, hazardous or scientific research, such as rocket
launching etc..) or there is something in between such as water or crowds etc. these
lenses is a formidable, weapon for shooting fast action sports, wildlife, scientific
research, journalism or simply capturing the private mood in leisure photography.
The narrow angle of view is often used by nature photographers to isolate a segment
of an entire picture scene in particular useful in scenic photography. Some are even
clever enough to use the extremely narrow picture angle act as a spot meter in certain
situations. One distinctive optical characteristic of these long focal length super
telephoto lenses is, they seem to compress space to the point where objects which
in reality separated by great distances between, appearing to have tack right behind
one another - a creative visual advantage which often used and manipulate by many
creative eyes behind the viewfinder.

<<< ---Virtually all modern large aperture Nikkor telephoto
lenses are provide with a handy carrying metal case as standard accessory which seems
to be solid enough to withstand bumps and knocks, it is air tight and sufficiently
well rain seal which is also good protective tool for transport via airliner. That
was a well thought out and considerate enough to shield such an expensive investment.

Whatever it is, there is no denying fact that with
the introduction of autofocus technology both in camera and lenses, photography with
telephotography is never the same again. The sheer speed and accuracy provides is
simply incomparable with traditional way of manual focus photography. Other than
in its various photographic applications. In fact, many camera/lens manufacturers
have also make use of their range of super-telephoto lenses to exhibit their latest
fruitful research from respective AF technologies on camera/lenses. As all of these
exotic, expensive lenses which is beyond most general consumers' purchasing power
are packed with the best of technologies within from respective makers. Nikon's current
range is "AF-S" series of lenses which was evolved from earlier emulated
attempt of "AF-I" series from Canon EF's USM technology. While this section
is still confined to Manual Focus range of Nikkor super telephoto lenses and the
AF section will be addressed in chapters to come.Nikkor
Super Telephoto Lenses -
|
300mm| 400mm| 500mm| 600mm| 880mm|1200mm| Reflex - 500mm1000mm2000mm

Credit: MCLau®, who has helped to rewrite
some of the content appeared this site. Chuck Hester® who has been helping
me all along with the development of all these Nikon websites;LarsHolst Hansen, 'Hawkeye'
who shares the same passion I have; Ms Rissa, Sales manager
from Nikon Corporation Malaysia for granting permission to use some of the official
content; TedWengelaar,Holland
who
has helped to provide many useful input relating to older Nikkor lenses; Some of the references
on production serial numbers used in this site were extracted from Roland Vink's website; HiuraShinsaku from Nikomat
Club Japan. Lastly,
to all the good people who has contributed their own expeience, resources or kind
enough granted permission to use their images of their respective optic in this site.
It is also a site to remember a long
lost friend
on the Net.Note:certain content and
images appeared in this site were either scanned from official marketing leaflets
& brochures published by Nikon and/or contribution from surfers who claimed originality
of their work for educational purposes. The creator of the site will not be responsible
for may discrepancies arise from such dispute except rectifying them after verification."Nikon", "Nikkormat", "Nippon Kokagu
KK"
& "Nikkor" are registered
tradename of Nikon Corporation Inc., Japan. Site made with an Apple IMac.